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04 Mar 2015 8:38:17am

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The article seems just an elaborate, post hoc rationalisation of religious belief.I have no trouble speculating that the universe has meaning. Indeed, whether we believe in God or not, the universe has created meaning, however miniscule (in the scheme of things) in us. Consciousness and thought exist and they're not just epiphenomena, or if they are it's rather astounding that the universe does appear to be intelligible to us, and subject to our mathematical formulae. Or if mathematics "holds sway above the flux", as the atheist Bertrand Russell believed, it seems extraordinary that a biological life-form evolved on an obscure planet should have access to reality's numerical code, and that empiricism goes so far beyond securing that species immediate and specific terrestrial needs.Yes it is at least "plausible" that intelligence lies behind design, but not necessary to the conclusion that the universe has meaning--seems bent on creating meaning!What I do find objectionable is using the apparent synchronicity of thought and matter to suggest the veracity of eccentric religious practices and Gods.It's enough for me that there's a profound mystery at the centre of the universe, that all is not, or is only plausibly, explicable in purely material terms.It's not science's place to conjecture beyond empirical evidence, there has to be a rational link between given reality and, say, string theory. String theory's not mere confabulation based on faith.But it's not science's place to foreclose, either, on what's permissible in terms of explanation--that there "can only be" a material explanantion. Empiricism makes of reality what it is in its sensual capacity "capable" of establishing. That doesn't mean sensuality is the only register, or that its findings preclude other perspectives.